Cantinho do Alçada

CANTINHO
DO ALÇADA

In our ongoing collaboration with the project Sob-o-mesmo-céu since 2019, we tried to transform the community’s discussions, desires and anxieties into a spatial intervention enhancing the neighborhood’s public space. The absence of any specific public equipment/place serving everybody in the neighborhood was the most common want pointed by the community.

We started by working how we could improve the neighborhood’s public space through various kinds of creative exercises, grounded on the idea and methods of “adventure playground”. This presupposed an open workshop environment, where creating is “playing” and through a number of prototypes and new public uses resulted.

Through a simple material and formal vocabulary and reusing old materials, we tried new uses and shapes for a new public space. In 2021 we continuyed the process by constructing the space itself. New urban furniture and areas emerged.

It was the group that assumed the conception and construction of the new space itself, in a tiered process. First defining the place and its areas, then constructing its furniture; followed by a workshop of urban horticulture developed by the landscape architect Euníce Lisboa Neves.

The process continued with the decoration and sign making needed, signaling important elements in this new public place, and using stencil techniques. Lastly, we finished (for now) with the construction of street games on what became known as “cantinho do alçada”, Quinta do Alçada’s new urban place.